College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means For Students

by Jeffrey J. Selingo,
The Huffington Post, May 7, 2013

Since the 1970s, Jeffrey Selingo, editor at large for the Chronicle of Higher Education, acknowledges, plenty of people have predicted the end of colleges and universities as we know them. Now, however, Selingo thinks they may be right. Colleges in the United States, he writes, have "lost their focus on what had been and should be their primary mission - teaching students and researching the next big discoveries." Of the students who enter community colleges, only 20% graduate within three years. At four year institutions, slightly more than half leave with a bachelor's degree. Public and private institutions, moreover, are mired in perpetual fiscal crises, as state and federal appropriations to them continue to be cut and resistance to above inflation tuition increases grows. "The current structure of higher education is beginning to crumble," Selingo claims, "and will eventually be replaced by a radically different system."